Vision funding 'Teaching the Teachers'

Vision Charity awarded Blind in Business £10,000 to help reach and train 600 blind and visually impaired students around the UK.

Blind in Business (BinB) run a training course called Future Focus, which is delivered to typically mainstream schools throughout the UK. Dan Mitchell of Blind in Business said “ Without the Vision Charity financial support we could not deliver this work.”

Typically BinB run 35 courses a year which involves:

· 10-15 blind and visually impaired children being taken through the process of career planning, in a hands-on way.

· Students receiving interview practice - a scary prospect for any teenager to go through.

· discussions about a range of careers from teaching, to computer programming, marketing, accountancy, media jobs, in fact anything but driving a bus!

· giving the children a chance to show themselves.

· Giving the students the chance to work, for the first time in their lives, separating them from their support workers, parents and teachers.

· probably for the first time, giving the students the opportunity to actually do some really hard work!

· Getting these children up from their chairs, to speak about themselves and how to sell their skills and abilities.

As part of this project, BIB visit 600 children every year. This also involves teachers, who attend the courses. They learn from Dan Mitchell at Blind in Business who set up the Training Service in October 2000, starting with just 50 children in the first year year, now it is an impressive 600 every year.

This means that every course delivered , a teacher - a teacher that can deliver the same course to different children every year, as a cascade, this mirror-effect goes on with all the schools throughout the country.

BinB go along, and watch teachers convey BinB’s work thus sharing esources and knowledge.

Dan says “We don’t protect our work, we share it. So more children can benefit, and more teachers can learn from the professionals.”

Blind in Business is the only organisation in the UK delivering this work and they want to carry on doing this work, helping more teachers to do what they do.

BinB said “Without this contribution from the Vision Charity we would not be able to do this work. ‘The contribution that Vision has made, has helped us train so many people and we want to help a lot more. We plan to train many more teachers throughout the year who will then deliver more courses to children, using our direction and experience and help, teachers can learn from us.”

If you would like to learn more about Blind in Business call 0207 588 1885 or e-mail info@blindinbusiness.org.uk